


Welcome to Saving the World.

by theatergirl06



Series: The Chosen Six. [1]
Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: F/F, Superhero School AU!, This is gonna be fun!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24015802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatergirl06/pseuds/theatergirl06
Summary: Six young women with extraordinarily powerful abilities are fated to fight the most dangerous supervillain of all time.
Relationships: Anne Boleyn/Catherine Parr, Anne of Cleves/Katherine Howard, Catherine of Aragon/Jane Seymour, every six queen and every other six queen as friends
Series: The Chosen Six. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732204
Comments: 59
Kudos: 174





	1. Anne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs for this chapter: Mentions of kidnapping, swearing.

The second Anne Boleyn opened her eyes on Tuesday morning, she knew something was wrong. She definitely remembered going to sleep in her own bed in London after a late night doing her English homework. She remembered setting out an outfit for tomorrow, a camo dress with black tights, black ankle boots, and a green leather jacket.

When she woke up, she was most certainly  _ not  _ lying in her own bed in London. She was in a small room with a soft, small white bed. Everything was small.

Her immediate instinct was to scream and pound on the walls because this felt a whole lot like being kidnapped.

So she screamed and pounded on the wall because this felt a whole lot like being kidnapped.

The door to the room flew open, and a tall woman dressed in all black raced in.

Okay, even sketchier.

Before Anne could even raise a hand, the woman had her pinned against the wall.

“Love, please, I’m going to ask you to calm down.”

“Calm down?! I’m not going to fucking calm down, you kidnapped me!”   
“No. No, I didn’t. Look, Anne, I promise I’ll explain everything.”

Anne froze. “How the hell do you know my name?”

The woman sighed. “I’m going to let go, okay? I don’t want to do this while I’m holding you here like this. But can you promise that you won’t try to hurt me or run?”

Anne sighed. Maybe she could buy herself some time. “Alright.”

Slowly, the woman lifted their hands off of her. She sat down on the bed. Anne leaned against the wall and crossed her arms defensively over her chess.

“Anne, what I’m going to say to you may sound insane. But I promise you it’s true.”

Anne raised her eyebrows. “Okay…but you have to tell me your name first.”

The woman offered a small smile. “My name’s Barbara.”

“All right, Barbara. What’ going to sound crazy?”

Barbara took another deep breath. “Anne...you have superpowers.”

Anne stared at her for a split second, then burst into laughter. “I  _ what _ ?! And I suppose I have a world-saving destiny too?”

Barbara’s face remained serious. “Actually, yes.”

Anne’s jaw dropped open in shock. “Okay, you really are crazy. I’m going now.” And she marched towards the (surprisingly open) door.

The door slammed shut in front of her.

Slowly, Anne turned and stared Barbara right in the eyes.

“Motion sensors.”

Barbara raised her hand. Anne felt the choker around her neck come undone and fall to the floor.

Oh wow.

Holy actual shit.

Superpowers existed.

Wait, no they didn’t. She was in a mental hospital and going insane. It was a more logical explanation than superpowers existing. This was absolutely crazy.

But was it?

How else could Barbara have taken off her choker?

“Okay. So...say for a moment that superpowers exist, which  _ I’m not saying they do _ , then what in the world makes you think I have them?”

Barbara leaned back, head cocked slightly to the left, her wavy blonde hair falling sideways like a rippling river of water. “We have devices that detect young individuals with powers. When we find them, we take them here. And when they’re here, they make a choice. They can get their memories wiped and go home, or…”

“Or?”

“Or you can come and train. Discover your power. Save the world.”

“So you don’t even know what my ‘power’ is?”

“No I don’t. But...and this is where everything gets a little scary...we did detect that you had an unusually large amount of power.”

“What does that mean?”

“There’s this supervillain. He’s the most powerful supervillain there’s ever been. And this one prophet, she...she predicted six young heroes, each with an unusual amount of power. They’re the ones who are supposed to fight him.” Barbara leaned forward and squeezed Anne on the arm. “Anne, you have more power than we’ve ever seen, and you’re not the only one. Others are appearing. We need you to come and train so you can, yes, save the world.”

Anne rolled her eyes in disbelief. “You do realized you’ve given me the whole storybook world saving superpower chosen one story in, like, five minutes, right?”

Barbara laughed. “Yeah, Anne, I do. But please, the world needs you.”

“And what would this entail?”

“We would wipe your family’s memories of you, for their own protection. You’d come to school, you’d do intensive classes to unlock your power…”

“Like a video game?”

“Yes, exactly like a video game. Then you’d start training with all the other student superheroes. They’d all be teenagers, just like you, and you’d still have some normal classes and extracurriculars, bits of the normal school experience.”

Anne sighed. “And you assume I’ll just throw my life away for this woman that I’m still not sure isn’t a psychotic kidnapper?”

“Do you like your life?”

Anne blinked. The question completely threw her off guard.

Of course she liked life. Her parents were fine, her school was fine, everything was fine. 

But was life meant to be something more?

Slowly, she turned her head and faced Barbara.    
“All right, crazy lady. I’ll go to your superhero academy thing. But my superpower had better be hella cool.”    
Barbara squealed and clasped her hands together. “Yes! Anne, you won’t regret this. This is what you were meant to do, I promise you.”

“Don’t get too excited of I’ll change my mind. What do we do now?”

“We get in the car that’s sitting outside, and we drive to school.”

“No private planes?”

“Superheroes are not that high tech, Anne.”

“Then what’s the point?”   
“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Only sort of.”

“Good. Come on, then.”

Barbara grabbed her arm and hurried her outside to a long black car. Inside it, she found another surprise.

“Katherine?! What are you doing here?”

The familiar face smiled up at her from inside the car. Anne hadn’t seen her cousin in ages, but even with the pink hair, she would recognize her anywhere.

“Hey, Anne. Apparently I have superpowers and a destiny.”    
Barbara smiled at them from the front seat. “Powers run in your family. We’ve been keeping an eye on you since you were born. Looks like we were right.”

Anne squeezed Katherine on the arm. “So why’d you agree to this?”

Katherine sighed. “You’ve met my parents, Anne. I don’t believe a word of this, I mean, there’s just no way, but I’d do anything to get out of that house. I saw my chance and I took it.”

“Wow, you’ve become quite cutthroat, haven’t you?”

Katherine’s eyes widened. “Oh, God, no! That was never what I wanted at all, it’s just that I…”

Anne laughed. Eleven years and Katherine was the same as ever. “Relax. I’m kidding.”

“Oh.” The pink haired girl’s face turned a shade of light pink. “What about you? Why do you believe that we have superpowers?”   
Anne sighed and leaned back in the chair. “I dunno. I guess I just kinda...feel it. Like I knew it was true all along.”

Katherine smiled at her. Her cousin was one year younger than she was, and a lot shorter, too. “Me too. But I was sure I was absolutely insane.”

Anne laughed. “Great minds think alike.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess they do.”

Anne hadn’t seen her cousin in eleven years, they had been five and six years old then, but they’d instantly become close over the course of a family reunion. It seemed like that closeness was still there now. She could feel it filling up the car.

Chills ran down her spine. Was this even real?

She was sitting in the back of a car next to her cousin, and apparently they were both mega powerful superheroes who were destined to save the world. They were going to a literal school that taught people how to be actual superheroes.

The car came around the corner, and Kat gasped at the view. Anne felt her mouth dropped open. 

Nestled midway up a tall mountain, at the base of the canyon, was an enormous stone castle. In front of it was a huge grass lawn, and Anne could see people on it even from here. There was a lake on one side of the castle, forests going all the way until the next row of mountains.

It looked exactly like Hogwarts from Harry Potter, and Anne couldn’t help but let out a tiny squeal of excitement.

“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” called Barbara from the front of the car. “It’s our pride and joy. Every superhero who’s ever amounted to anything has gone here.”

“It looks like a fairytale!”

“It looks like bloody Hogwarts!”

Barbara laughed. “You know, Anne, you aren’t the first one to say that.”    
Anne pressed her face to the glass again, staring at the huge castle getting closer and closer. From here she could see that the people all over the lawn were practicing their powers. People were literally shooting fire out of their hands, lifting trees, flying, all sorts of things that Anne had never in a million years thought she’d see.

Whoa.

This had happened  _ really  _ fast.

There was only one thing to say, thought Anne as they passed under the first of three stone arches.   
Holy shit. Holy motherfucking shit. 


	2. Cathy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Swearing.

Despite the woman named Heidi’s slicing her arm open with a knife and then proceeding to completely fix it without laying a finger on her, Cathy was still skeptical that superpowers existed at all, much less that she somehow possessed them. Perhaps it was all some enormous elaborate prank like on those television shows. It was more likely than actual superheroes existing.

Of course, the most likely scenario was that it was all an incredibly weird dream. She’d always felt different, so superpowers were probably something her subconscious had always secretly wished for. It made perfect sense.

But if this was really an odd dream, it was an awfully detailed one. The stone castle was just as cold as real stone. If this was a fantasy, wouldn’t the stones at least be warmer? Cathy  _ hated  _ the cold with burning passion.

She couldn’t help staring at every little detail as Heidi lead her through the hallways. It looked so much like Hogwarts from Harry Potter. Cathy had been  _ obsessed  _ with those books growing up. 

Each hall was huge, with enormous windows and torches sitting in the walls. The torches weren’t lit because it was still September, but Cathy could picture what the place must be like in the wintertime.

Despite her observations, even she lost track of how many long, winding staircases they climbed on their way to what Heidi claimed was her room, but by the end, they were standing at the top of a tall tower.

Heidi grinned at her. “You’re lucky, you know. Tower room. Best room in the school. Usually people get it their last year, but there are six of you, and we thought it would be constructive to have all of you be roommates. So here it is.”

She opened the door.

Cathy gasped.

There was almost too much to take in at once.

The room was enormous, round and tall, with a huge skylight that filled the entire ceiling. Directly across from the door were two class doors under an archway, and beyond those doors was a balcony. The entire floor was covered in a fuzzy rug that was printed to look like a galaxy.

Beyond that, it really did look like six girls lived there. On each side of the door was a window seat covered in deep purple velvet. Next to each window seat were three wardrobes, each tall and made of dark wood with a name carved onto it. Cathy found hers pretty rapidly. It was on the left side of the room, furthest from the door. 

On either side of the archway were two enormous bunk beds, each covered in entirely different colored blankets. Looking more closely, Cathy realized that the archway was actually a loft with two more beds on top of it.

Heidi tapped her on the shoulder, yanking her out of her observations. “Each bed has been custom made for one of you. It’s in all your favorite colors, and each bed has a special feature.”

“Wow.”

This really was a dream. 

She wandered over towards the left side of the room, where she found her bed instantly. It was the top bunk of the bunk bed. Using the ladder on the end, she climbed up and flopped down into the softness happily.

The covers were deep blue, the sheets soft and light blue. The entire bed was woven through with silver so that it almost looked like stars. It felt soft and simple and safe. All the things she loved.

Spying a button on the wooden bedframe, she pressed it excitedly, and had to cover her mouth to keep herself from letting out a rare squeal when an actual laptop, attached to a mini desk came out of the bedframe and moved to a rest directly at level with her arms as she sat. 

Heidi walked over to the base of their bed and smiled. “We know you’re a writer, so we thought you might enjoy this.”

Cathy grinned. “I love it. Thank you.”

Heidi walked back towards the door and gave a little wave. “The others should be coming soon. I have to go back to work, buy Cathy?”

“Yeah”

“I think you’ll like it here.”

Cathy stared through the glass ceiling at the sky. “I think I’ll like it, too.”

And with that, the door slammed shut, leaving Cathy alone with her laptop and this insane new world.

About half an hour later, she looked up expectantly as the door opened again. In walked a tall, dark-skinned girl with short hair, a red t-shirt, and black shorts. Cathy had no idea how she could wear shorts and a t-shirt in the mountains and not completely freeze, but she didn’t look cold at all. She also carried a confidence that filled the room that Cathy instantly picked up on. It wasn’t the sort of forced confidence that you saw in high school mean girl types, this confidence was easy and sure, like the kids at school who were cool but never sought the spotlight. The only ones who were  _ actually  _ cool.

The girl walked right up to the base of her bed. 

“Hey.”

“Good morning.”

“Um, it’s afternoon, actually.”   
The girl laughed. “I’m Anna.”

“I’m Catherine, but you can call me Cathy.”

Somehow, Anna managed to use her hands to push herself up onto the edge of the bed. “So, crazy shit, huh?”

“I’m still convinced this entire thing is a weird fantasy created by my subconscious in an attempt to make up for the fact that I completely don’t fit in at my school and I don’t have a lot of friends because I’m incredibly convinced I’m different.”

Anna laughed. “So you were a nerd in school.”

Cathy blushed in embarrassment. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I like nerds. They’re not fake and they don’t pretend to be better than they are. They just admit why they’re cool.”

“I’m guessing you aren’t a nerd.”

“Nope. I could never stop dreaming up football plays long enough to actually hear a word those teachers said to me.”

“But do you even think this is real?”

Anna sighed and glanced at Cathy, who nodded, before flopping backwards onto the bed. “I mean, it’s completely crazy, but...what else  _ could  _ it be?”

“A dream. A prank show. I’m hallucinating all of this because I’ve been in some sort of terrible accident.”

“Wow, you’ve thought about this a lot.”

“Look, I just don’t believe this could be real.”

“Well, what’s the harm in believing it if it isn’t?”

“Disappointment.”

“Fair enough. But promise me you’re gonna at least be able to have some fun.”   
“I’m the queen of fun.”

Anna stared her up and down, taking in her skeptical expression, tight bun, and laptop that was still open to pages full of writing. “Right. You look like it.” 

Cathy smirked and hunched back over her writing. Anna swung off the bed and ran across the room to her own, which was the bottom of the other bunk bed. Cathy climbed down her ladder and plopped onto the rug. She could see Anna’s bed better from here. It was red and looked just as soft as Cathy’s. Unlike Cathy’s, the special feature was clear. Speakers adorned the wall on the inside, with a space for headphones to plug into. Anna grinned and threw them on.

“Rock music and nobody to tell me to turn it off.”

Cathy laughed. Rock music sounded like her worst nightmare.

She jumped as the door slammed open behind her, and in walked two more girls.    
She could tell that they were related. Both were pale skinned but not abnormally so, with naturally blushing faces and brown hair. Their noses were clearly the same shape, and their faces were similar-ish as well.

But there were some differences. The girl on the right was taller and very curvy, with darker hair and green eyes. The girl on the right was shorter. She wasn’t skinny, but she seemed small because of her short height. Her brown hair, the same color as her eyes, was slightly lighter than her (sister’s? cousin’s?), but most of it was dyed a bright pink. 

The taller girl grinned and waved hello. “Hey! I’m Anne. This is my cousin Katherine.”

“You can all call me Kat.”

“We’re part of this crazy ass thing, too.”

“What she means is nice to meet you.”

Anne laughed and gave her cousin a playful shove. Kat yawned as she did so.

Anna poked her head out of her bed. “You tired? I’m Anna, by the way.”

Kat smiled. “I’m not that tired. Although I technically have no idea how long I slept. I could have gotten no sleep at all.”

Cathy popped her head up. “I’m Cathy. Also you’d be doing a lot more than yawning if you’d gotten no sleep at all.”

Anne smirked as she walked over to the right side of the room. “So you were a nerd in school, yeah?”

Cathy blushed. “Yeah.”

Anne managed to climb up the ladder onto her bed, which was just above Anna’s, in one motion. Her bed was green with pillows in several bright patterns, and a shelf on the side of it that held...for some reason...a pair of heelys. When Anne put them on, they seemed to move almost on their own. She grinned and started rolling around the room.

“Holy crap! This is awesome!”

Kat laughed and climbed up to her bed, which was on the right side of the loft. Her bed was pink, with purplish pink pillows, and a white fuzzy one in the center. She buried herself in figuring out her special feature, which looked very confusing from where Cathy was, and seemed to involve a lot of wires and a guitar.

Just as she began to climb back into her own bed, the door opened once more, and in walked the tallest girl she’d seen yet. 

She walked right up to Cathy’s bed.    
“Hi. I’m Catherine Aragon. My family is Spanish, and I apparently sleep here, underneath you. I’m Christian but I’m not homophobic or any of that crap. As you can see, I tell everything like it is.” She looked up and around the room at the other girls, who were all frozen except for Anne, who was still rolling. “As you can all probably see, I tell things like they are. If any of you have a problem with that, well...I’m sorry, but there’s pretty much nothing you can do about it.”

Anne somehow managed to stop rolling. “You know, most people just say hello.”

“Hey.”

Cathy hung down over the side of her bed. From here she could see that Catherine’s bed was done entirely in shades of gold and yellow. One of her pillows was printed with sunflowers, and there was a golden cross made out of twisted metal hanging down at the foot of the bed. Like Cathy, she had a button on the side. When she pressed it, glass walls came over the side of the lower bunk, causing Cathy to rapidly draw back her head. When she looked down again, she saw that Catherine was smiling. She pressed the button again and the walls went away.

“Soundproof.”

“Nice. I type a lot, so that’ll be good.”

Looking around the room, Cathy could see that a conversation had sprung up between Anne and Anna, who shared a bunk, and that Kat had figured out her special feature, which allowed her to play the guitar so that only she could hear. 

There was a thud. Cathy turned to the doorway and saw one last girl standing there. She was even paler than both Anne and Kat, with wavy blonde hair and a glittering silvery-white sweater and jeans.

“Hello everyone! Um...I’m Jane.” She gestured towards the last bed on the loft, with the headboard right next to Cathy’s head. The bed had a white, very soft looking blanket with silver threading, with black and white printed pillows, one of which, Cathy could see, was printed with actual piano keys. She could see even from here that her special feature seemed to be a little pot next to her bed. Jane walked over and curiously held it up. Her face brightened. 

“Oh, this is lovely. I think it smells like whatever your brain needs.”

“That’s scientifically impossible.”

“So is all of us having legendary superpowers and being destined to fight some insane supervillain.”

The room fell silent. Jane sat awkwardly on her bed. Even Anne plopped onto her green blanket.

“So...yeah...we should probably talk about that.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Cathy. “I just can’t. It changes everything anyone has ever known about how the world works.”

Anne rolled her eyes. “Well, I wouldn’t put it exactly like that, but the whole thing is a little out there.”

Kat nodded. “If superpowers really existed, don’t you think the world would be a little better?”

Anna shrugged from her spot on the red bed. “I dunno. It seems sort of...so crazy that it has to be true, if that makes any sense at all.”

Jane nodded. “Plus, if we’re all really here and none of us are dreaming or whatever, what’s the worst case scenario if we believe this?”

“We get humiliated on a prank show and it’s all anyone remembers about us for the rest of our lives.”

“Riiight. But if it  _ is  _ real and we don’t believe it until it’s too late, we’re going to regret missing weeks of trying to ‘unlock our powers,’ whatever that is, and experiencing this new world. And I’d rather be on a prank show than miss out on that.”

The room fell silent again, everyone pondering Jane’s words. Slowly, all heads turned to Catherine, expecting her to put in the final word. 

The Spanish girl shrugged. “I already believe in God. This is  _ not  _ a far stretch from that. I mean, I didn’t think superpowers would look like  _ this,  _ but why  _ wouldn’t  _ they exist? It makes sense that some of us have something different inside of ourselves. Something powerful.”

The room fell silent again.

Finally, Cathy broke the silence.

“I’ll try to believe it if you all will.”   
Kat nodded. “Me too.”

Anne grinned. “But if it’s a prank show, I want to come work here.” She glanced up at the ceiling, looking for cameras and yelling. “Hey camera people! Can I do that?”

The room dissolved into laughter.

Cathy still had no idea what was going on, but none of these girls did either. And strangely, that made everything feel a lot better. 


	3. Jane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Drugs, hallucination.  
> Sorry this one's a bit short!

Despite their pact to stick together and the comfort it had brought, Jane couldn’t help but feel that everything around her was still falling apart.

Her world had suddenly been torn out from under her, and she’d ended up in this place instead. Granted, her world hadn’t been the best thing ever, but still...it had  _ existed.  _ It had been home. 

She still wasn’t even sure she  _ had  _ powers. She had never been the “powers” person. She’d never fought, never debated, she’d just always...avoided conflict. It wasn’t that she couldn’t stand up for herself, it was just that she’d chosen not to have to.

Weren’t superheroes supposed to fight and save the world and stuff? 

Jane sighed, flopping onto her bed, which at least did feel like home, white and silver just like the bed she’d grown up sleeping in. The piano keys pillow was quite a nice touch, too, and she loved her...magical air freshener thing.

But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she just didn’t belong there, even as they left the room and began following a woman named Barbara around the school.

The woman who had brought her here, Catina, hadn’t said much. She’d struck Jane as a fighter with a fun streak when she wanted it, which lined up with what she’d learned when Catina had said she taught combat training.

Barbara, on the other hand, was a complete chatterbox, which in a way was better, because Jane got to learn more about the school and not feel so clueless. On the other hand, when she found herself at a complete loss for words, she only felt worse, especially compared to Anne, who walking next to her and asking a different question every second. 

They walked through classroom after classroom, each looking mostly like a normal classroom, but just a bit different, different enough to make Jane just a bit uncomfortable. 

But when they got outside to the lawn in front of the lake, Jane somehow managed to get even more uncomfortable than she already was. 

There were students, all fighting one another at once, and they all seemed to be using some superpower.  _ Real  _ superpowers.

Jane knew she was staring, but she didn’t really care. All the others were staring, too, anyway. 

Catina spotted them from the center of the lawn, drove a tall pole she was holding into the ground, _ literally vaulted over it _ , and landed on the ground in front of them, not even out of breath.

Jane’s mouth dropped open. This whole thing was like a movie. 

It was impressive and intimidating and wonderful all at once.

Catina grinned and leaned on her staff. It didn’t escape her notice that Barbara was blushing.

“New recruits?”

“New recruits.”

“Are these the ones you keep talkin’ about?”

“These are them!”

Catina stared them up and down, looking excited and a little unimpressed, which made Jane very nervous.

“They should be fun to have in intensive class. You’re lucky.”

Barbara grinned and tucked a strand of her wavy blonde hair behind one ear. “Not really. Intensive is  _ torture.” _

Jane started squirming, twiddling her fingers with pent-up nerves. Looking sideways, she saw that most of the other girls were also doing some sort of nervous habit. Kat was twirling her hair, Anne was biting her nails, Catherine was digging her fingers into her wrists. Only Anna and Cathy seemed remotely chill, or at least not nervous. Cathy’s eyes were darting from fighter to fighter, possibly analyzing their techniques? Anna was leaning casually on Kat’s shoulder. She was also the only one who looked completely calm. Jane had no idea how on Earth she was managing it. 

Of course it was Anne who managed to finally say what they were all thinking.

“Um...what’s intensive?”

Barbara laughed nervously. “Oh god, you poor things! You must’ve thought it was  _ actual  _ torture! Don’t worry! We’d never do that to you!”   
Catina rolled her eyes and smirked as she leaned even harder on her staff. Her hair was slightly curlier than Barbara’s, and it glowed in deep shades of auburn as it fell over her shoulders. “Barbara, if you look up descriptions of literal torture, this is what they sound like.”

Barbara’s face turned red yet again. “Anyway, intensive is something that every student goes through when they first arrive here. It’s a certain number of weeks of training with the other individuals in your ‘group’ so to speak, that’s the six of you for you guys, and you don’t do other stuff like history or extracurriculars, you just fight and take stimulants we give you until you unlock your powers.”

That sounded like Jane’s worst nightmare.

“Jeez, Barbara, it’s already torture, you didn’t need to make it sound like we were putting them on drugs.” She glanced up at the girls with glittering hazel eyes. “Don’t do drugs, kids.” And with that, she launched herself back over the pole and disappeared back into the crowd.

Barbara sighed, trying her best to compose herself, even though all of the girls knew how flustered she was. “So anyway, that’s the combat training area. Catina runs it, and...um...yeah.” She glanced up from her clipboard as they came to a stop outside the school’s front gate. “So it’s still your first day. Intensive doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, but we can give it a little experiment today if you’d like. Just to get a feel for it.”

Jane looked around. She just wanted to flop into her bed and never wake up again. 

She hadn’t even  _ started  _ being a superhero yet and she was already exhausted! What sort of superhero destined to save the world did  _ that _ ?!

Of course, all the other girls were nodding, some more eagerly than others, but nonetheless nodding. 

Which was how Jane found herself sitting in a chair in the middle of a huge, silver room. The other girls were spread out around the room, each having been given a slightly different exercise. Catherine and Anne had been closed off inside a tiny patch of floor, armed with swords, and ordered to fight (though Barbara had assured them all that the swords did no real damage). Cathy and Kat had their hands clasped and had entered into a “shared mental state” as Barbara called it.

Meanwhile, Jane and Anna found themselves sitting at a table while Barbara prepared a syringe with stimulants.

Of course, she assured them it was perfectly safe. But nonetheless, Jane found herself having to count her breaths as she inhaled and exhaled. 

_ One. Two. Three. Four. _

_ Everything’s. Gonna. Be. Okay. _

_ One. Two. Three. Four. _

_ You’ve got. Nothing. To worry. Ab...OW! _

_ Jane opened her eyes and found herself not in a dark, creepy forest like she’d anticipated, but instead floating on soft, pale pink clouds. They almost looked like cotton candy, except they were just a tad less sweet. There was something dark and bitter underneath all the spun sugar and the softness. _ _   
_ _ But all Jane wanted to do was float. She didn’t want to know whatever dangers lurked underneath the pink and silver. She just wanted some peace. _

_ Was that too much to ask? _

_ But suddenly the bitterness became impossible to ignore. Suddenly the pink clouds were turning into a bleak shade of grey. Jane tried to flee the spreading gloom, but there was nothing she could do to get away. She looked down at herself, but instead of grey like the clouds around her, she had become a rainbow of colors, reds and purples and blues spilling out of her like watercolor paints.  _ _   
_ _ Spilling out of her in every color but pink. She could only watch as they mixed together as they spread over the clouds, going from vibrant and beautiful to a sickening shade of that not quite right color that you find when you mix every color together. _

_ A few birds in shades of blue and silver floated above her head. They sang songs in low-pitched voices, their chirps combining to make a rumble that made the clouds shake underneath Jane’s feet. _

_ She opened her mouth to sing with them, but out poured only pink clouds, spilling and floating and swirling and flying. This time, they almost looked like a pouring milkshake as they fell downwards and out of sight. _

_ She glanced down and was surprised to see that she was falling to the ground, too. She was floating alongside the pink clouds, leaving the storm above her.  _ _   
_ _ But when she turned to look at the ground, all she could see was a bright, white light. _

A scream brought her out of her hallucination, head spinning and eyes stinging as she did so. She shakily stood and turned in a circle, looking for the source of the noise.

She froze, eyes bulging out of her skull. She was pretty sure she looked like a cartoon.

Across the room, both swords were laying on the floor.

Catherine had her hands out in front of her face.

And Anne was floating in the air.

Both of them looked completely and utterly terrified.

Barbara looked up from the table, grinning.

Everyone spoke at once.

“What’s happening?”

“How…”

“What…”

“Wha…”

“Put me down!”

“I don’t know how!”

“Ladies!” The room fell silent at the sound of Barbara’s voice. “Everything is going to be fine. ”   
She grinned once more, looking at the shocked faces all around her. “In the meantime, congratulations, Miss Aragon. We seem to have found ourselves a very powerful telekinetic.”

She was about to leave the room when a voice stopped her.

“Barbara?”

“Yes, Anne?”

“How do I get out of the air?”


	4. Kat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Brief mentions of swords.

After the excitement of Catherine’s sudden discovery of her power, the girls had been all too eager to get back to the intensive room. Telekinesis was something out of movies, television shows, and books. To have a power like that in reality was something none of them had even begun to comprehend.

Of course, once one of them had it, they all wanted it. Despite Barbara’s warnings that no two of them would have the same power, that not every power would be as conventionally powerful, so to speak, as telekinesis, the emergence of Catherine’s power just made them all want their own powers even more.

It had been like that with teenagers for a long time, Kat thought during intensive one day as she sat and observed the others. Barbara was standing at the blackboard, with two lines separating it into four quadrants. Each quadrant was headed with a different word: Physical, Elemental, Time/Space, and Mental.

Looking around the room, Kat could tell that not everyone was paying attention. In fact, it seemed like none of them were paying attention. Catherine was trying to make a pencil float in the air, Anne was trying to avoid being poked by said pencil, Cathy was scribbling something on a paper (Kat supposed it technically could’ve been notes, but she knew it wasn’t), Jane was twiddling her fingers nervously, and Anna was staring at the ceiling and drumming on her desk.

Kat supposed she wasn’t paying attention either, seeing as she’d been watching the other girls instead of looking at the board.

Meanwhile, Barbara had still been talking, completely oblivious to all of them. 

“Every superpower can be sorted into four categories: Physical, Elemental, Time/Space, and Mental. They’re pretty much what you’d expect based off their names. Physical powers have to do with our bodies and what they can do. Stuff like flight and super strength and speed and healing.” She pointed to the next category. “Elemental powers involve controlling substances outside our own body, mainly earth, water, fire, and air, but also things like acids and plants fall into this category.” She took a deep breath, clearly having given this particular lesson dozens of times. “Time/Space powers mean manipulating the plane of existence. Things like teleportation and time travel. And Mental powers are anything involving the mind. Telepathy, empathy, enhanced intelligence, things like that.”

At that point, Anne, who was very annoyed because Catherine kept poking her with the floating pencil, had raised her hand.   
“Are mental powers even real? Like, I’ve heard the word empathy before. Isn’t that a normal, not superpower-y thing?” 

Barbara laughed. “Oh, they’re real. Rare, but real. And believe me, some of the worst mistakes I’ve seen people make is when they underestimate mental powers. Empathy specifically means you can feel other people’s emotions. It’s sort of like telepathy, but without the jumble of thoughts.”

Catherine had raised her hand.

“Barbara?”

“Yes, Catherine?”

“What category is telekinesis in?”

Barbara sighed. “Catherine, every telekinetic I have ever seen, including myself, has asked this question. Technically it can fit into multiple categories, but the Superhero Union decided to categorize it as physical, because the energy used in it comes from your own body.”

Kat’s head popped up off her desk, where she’d been moving her fingers in the shape of guitar chords, as she so often did. “What’s the Superhero Union?”

Barbara sighed. Kat honestly couldn’t blame her. She’d been cooped up with them all week, and though Barbara was used to working at a desk and staying inside (as the assistant head of school), Kat knew she gained a lot of her energy from her interactions with the other staff members. She was bubbly and chatty, despite her awkwardness, which also made sense.    
Kat liked Barbara. She knew some of the other girls couldn’t stand her seemingly endless positivity and chatty nature, but Kat could relate to her. She, too, had a tendency to lean on the friendlier (as opposed to stoic) side. The children around her growing up hadn’t always loved that.

But that was a thought for another time. For now, she snapped her focus back to Barbara, who was in the middle of answering.

“Great question, Kat! The Superhero Union is like our government. There’s a ton of different people who are in charge of different things, and they meet a few times a year to share their progress and propose new ideas. The Department of New Individuals...that’s the people who deal with adults who still haven’t learned to control their powers...decided a few years ago that we needed to categorize telekinesis, so we did.” She clapped her hands. “Any more questions before we start testing again? We’re gonna split up into categories today, see how that goes.” She narrowed her eyes as Catherine poked Anne once more with the pencil. “Catherine, I see you with that pencil, young lady. We do not abuse our powers.”

Catherine rolled her eyes. “This is nowhere near as bad as Anne doodling all over my soundproof walls while I’m sleeping! You do  _ not  _ want to see the things I see when I wake up!”

Barbara groaned and placed her head in her hand. “Ladies, I’ve told you about a million times this week. The special features are meant to make all of you _ happy.  _ They are  _ not  _ meant to be used to torment one another.” She gave Catherine a pointed stare. “Just like your powers.”

With no more questions, they began intensive. In the past week, Kat had tried many different methods, none of which had made her feel remotely powerful. There had been a couple of occasions when one of the other girls had felt a rush of power which had disappeared as soon as it arrived. Barbara had assured them all that this was perfectly normal, and  _ not  _ having rushes of power (like Kat), was also normal.

But Kat didn’t feel any different. At all, really. She couldn’t help but feel that if she did indeed have a superpower, it hadn’t even been under lock and key like Barbara so often described. Instead, she thought it might’ve been unlocked all along. She’d just never noticed it. 

Since the lecture was over, Catherine had left the room to go along to her regular class, which was probably her class with her student group. Student groups all shared the same power type. Some were big, some were small. Since Physical powers were rather common, Catherine’s group was one of many, and it was home to around ten students. 

“But they’re not nearly as entertaining as all of you,” Catherine had reassured them all one night when they were all laying on the rug and talking instead of going to sleep. 

Kat missed having her around when she went off to class. Her honest yet loving presence was a staple of the little group they’d managed to quickly build. She was certainly strong, and had a tough exterior, but it was clear as day that she had a heart of gold.

Not all of the other girls were so obviously good. Some were, but not all.

Of course she was thrilled to see her cousin again. Like Catherine, Anne very clearly had a good heart and always had.  _ Unlike  _ Catherine, she also very clearly had developed quite a wild streak since she and Kat had last crossed paths. While some (like Anna, who Anne had developed a fast friendship with), clearly found Anne’s spirit endearing, others (like Catherine and Cathy), seemed to find it rather irritating, or at the very least worrisome.

And then there was Anna. Kat had made every effort to like the energetic girl, but there was something about her that just rubbed her the wrong way. Maybe it was the cocky confidence with which she carried herself, like she was so sure, too sure, that everything would go her way. Or perhaps it was the fact that nothing seemed to phase her, but not in a natural way, as though she’d made herself forget how to care.

Kat often found herself staring at her, wondering what thoughts and feelings lived beneath the surface.

“Katherine!” Barbara’s fingers were suddenly snapping in front of her face. Kat blinked rapidly, trying to clear the last thoughts from her head. 

“Yes?”

Barbara sighed as she walked away from the desk. “I was asking what type of power you wanted to be tested for today.”

Kat’s face flushed a deep pink. “Oh, um...I don’t really care.”

Barbara smirked, a rare expression for the blonde woman. “With that much daydreaming, I wouldn’t be surprised if you turned out to have a mental power.”

Kat shrugged, not sure what to say. “I guess?”

Anne raced across the room (she did seem to move around at top speed quite a bit), and threw her arms around her cousin’s shoulders. “Come on, Kit Kat! Come do Physical powers with meeeee!”

Laughing, Kat pushed herself away from the desk and followed the brunette across the room. “Okay, okay! I’ll play with the swords for you! But just this once!”

Three hours later, every muscle and bone in her body felt like it was covered in lead. Swinging swords around was both physically and mentally draining, and she had felt no bursts of power, not even normal adrenaline.

She wanted to enjoy this fairytale she’d been thrown into, but sometimes it was just so goddamn  _ frustrating. _

At least she got to flop into bed.    
And the second she got back to the room, that was exactly what she did. Catherine was already back and reading in one of the window seats, but the others all had the exact same idea as Kat. 

Despite her extreme enthusiasm for the sport, Anne too had tired of swords after a few hours, and looked as tired as Kat felt.

Jane and Cathy had been over testing some Time/Space stimulations, and though they seemed less physically exhausted than the cousins, they were most certainly  _ very  _ loopy. Kat laughed as Jane walked over shakily and plopped into the bed next to her.

“You okay?”

Jane stared at her with a glazed-over look in her eyes.

“Time and space are  _ weird. _ ” She flopped back onto her bed, giggling.

Kat stared at her, bemused, as she went to plug in her guitar. “You don’t say.”

Anna popped her head out from under Anne’s bunk. Like Anne and Kat, she’d been experimenting with the swords that day, but she didn’t seem the least bit exhausted. “Ready to turn out the lights?”

Anne grinned as she leapt dramatically into the bunk, her head narrowly missing the frame of the loft. “You  _ know  _ I am!” 

Kat couldn’t technically see Cathy rolling her eyes, but she knew she was. While the writer wasn’t often annoyed by Anne’s dramatics, it was easy to see that she didn’t find them the least bit funny.

Before Kat could turn and see if she’d been right, Anna flipped the switch by the door (how had she gotten from her bed to her door so fast?), and the lights went out.

After a few hours of dreamless sleep, Kat was roughly jolted awake by the sounds of raised voices outside the bedroom door. 

Time really did seem to be going by fast today.

Looking around to make sure all the others were asleep, she silently swung herself out of bed, crept across the room, and put her ear to the door.

The two voices were getting closer. One was a voice she recognized as Barbara’s, the other was lower and one she’d never heard before. She did her best to hear through the thick wood.

“...Took over  _ another  _ squadron of soldiers today! He can’t go on like this!”

“I know that, Harold! That’s why the girls are here! To stop him!”

“Well, we can’t wait any longer! We need them now!”

“You can’t rush the process of discovering your power! Doing that wrong is dangerous!”

“As dangerous as letting someone like Henry Tudor run rampant?”

“Look, you can rush this all you want, but if these girls have any chance of stopping Henry, they need to be trained! They’re not going to be ready all on their own!”

“For heaven’s sakes, Barbara, this man has taken control of over a thousand people, and that number is growing every day! We can’t let him win!”

“If we ruin our one shot at stopping him, we  _ are  _ letting him win, Harold!”

“If we don’t even use it, it’s the same thing!”

“We’re  _ going  _ to use it!”

“Well we’d better use it soon.”    
Silence fell in the hallway. Kat did her best to calm the pounding of her heart. It was pounding so loudly, she was sure they could hear it even through the thick, wooden door.

“Harold, I know this man has taken over civilizations. I know he’s kidnapped and controlled hundreds of innocent people. I know what he’s capable of.”

“You’re placing his fate in the hands of six teenage girls.”

“You know as well as I that they’re the only chance we have.”

“But we don’t have forever.”

“I know.”

“Until the end of the year.”

“What?”

Another pause. “I’m giving you until the end of the year to get these girls ready for this. If they’re not, we attack him in every other way we can. But we stop counting on them.”

A third pause.

“Fair enough.”

Kat could hear their footsteps in the hallway, fading away with every second. She slumped against the door, drenched in sweat and panting. She could barely believe her ears.

If what she’d just heard was true, then they were fighting someone more dangerous than any of them had ever dreamed.


	5. Anne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Exhaustion, fire, handcuffs.

After a week at the superhero academy (which, according to Barbara, didn’t actually have an official name), Anne was surprised to find how much she’d liked it.

She liked the feeling that she was on a sort of adventure. That anything could happen at any moment. She’d liked her old life, too, but this one felt so right. She hadn’t realized how much of herself she’d been suppressing until she’d come here and begun showing her true colors.

She’d spent a lot of her childhood forced into the role of the popular girl. Hew older sister, Mary, had been the popular girl, and there had been so much pressure on her to follow in her footsteps. She’d thought that it was what she wanted, but here she got to be goofy and not care what anyone thought. She just got to let everything go.   
It was the best feeling in the world.

Plus there were the other girls. In the span of a week, she’d gotten to know them better than any of her old friends. Maybe they’d just all been really shallow, but there was an instant sense of camaraderie between the six of them. As though they knew they were all in this fight, whatever this fight was, together.

Of course they still had a lot to learn about one another and a long way to go. But it was definitely a very promising start.

Of course there was Anna, who she’d instantly become fast friends with. The two girls had a lot in common, though on the outside it didn’t seem that way. They were both full of energy and driven by a desire to enjoy life. For Anne, that meant breaking free of rules and restrictions. For Anna, it meant going with the flow and loving yourself. Anne had been surprised just how quickly they’d bonded, because, well, a week isn’t very long, but it was sort of like summer camp. Bonds formed fast.

They weren’t the only ones who’d formed a quick bond, either. Catherine and Jane had spent more time together in the last week than Anne could count. When she thought about it, it did sort of make sense. It wasn’t like Anne and Anna, who were more alike than they were different, but instead a pairing that balanced one another out. Catherine had a standoffish nature and was honest, sometimes brutally so, but it was clear as day that she was a good person. Jane had a very approachable air to her, and she seemed to truly care about everyone she talked to, which was rare in anyone really. 

So, thought Anne, Jane can see the warmth in Catherine, and Catherine can help Jane protect herself if anyone tries to take advantage of her. It was certainly promising.

Of course Anne didn’t constantly do deep analyses of the other girls’ friendships. That would just be  _ really  _ weird and creepy. But sometimes, when it was 2AM and she couldn’t sleep, she found her mind just racing, thinking about whatever came to mind. And often, what came to mind was the other girls.

This particular night, her thoughts were drawn to Kat. She could see her younger cousin very clearly from where she was, and it was easy to tell that she wasn’t sleeping, either. She was staring at the ceiling, a panicked look in her eyes, like she was trying to fall asleep, but something was worrying her  _ so  _ much that she simply couldn’t. Anne wondered what could possibly be keeping her awake so late. Kat was usually a sound sleeper, something they’d all learned quickly when she kept falling asleep in the middle of their late-night conversations.

Anne felt her eyelids drooping. She yawned, and felt herself beginning to drift of into sleep. She did wonder what Kat was thinking about.

Oh well. She’d find out in the morning.

Sure enough, she woke up to find an anxious looking Kat sitting in the center of the rug and staring blankly at the door. One look at her told Anne that she hadn’t gotten any sleep at all the previous night, which worried her. Cathy was the only person in their room who could truly function without sleep, and even her functionality was...questionable to say the least.

She swung out of bed quietly, glancing around the room. Catherine was already gone; she’d probably gone to the library to study for one of her “normal” classes. Cathy was sitting and reading in one of the window seats, Jane was just waking up, and Anna was listening to music in her bed. Anne was lucky Anna’s headphones worked so well, or she’d be hearing the girl’s music 24/7.

She slid across the rug and put her arm around her cousin’s shoulder. Up close, it was even easier to tell how exhausted and nervous she was. She was biting her lip, there were bags under her eyes, and her gaze kept darting rapidly around the room. And yet, because she was Kat, she still looked gorgeous, which was  _ tremendously _ unfair, but Anne could let it slide because she was just so...nice.

“Kat, you all right?”

Kat turned to Anne, distressed. “I have something important to tell you. All of you.”

In just a few minutes, all of the girls (even Catherine, who Jane had gotten from the library), were sitting in a circle around Kat, each one looking either confused, concerned, or both.

“So what happened?”

Kat sighed, slumping her shoulders. 

“Okay, so last night, I overheard Barbara outside our door. She was talking to a man I didn’t recognize, at least not by his voice. I think his name was Harold, maybe? Anyway, they were talking about a man. His name was Henry. And the way they described him was...awful at best. They said he’d…” she took a deep breath, “they said he’d been controlling people. I don’t know what that meant, but it can’t be good. They said he had control of thousands. And they said…”

Anne inhaled sharply, the final piece of the puzzle snapping into her brain. From Cathy’s face, she’d probably figured it out, too.

“They said we have to stop him.”

Kat yawned, practically asleep already. “Y...yes.”

Jane looked at the girl, concerned. “Should she maybe...skip today’s lesson? She looks exhausted.”

The rest of the girls’ voices faded into the background. All Anne could think of was what Kat had told her.

A man who had control upon thousands upon thousands of people. And she was supposed to stop him.

That didn’t sound fun or free or wonderful. It sounded like real responsibility.

And the thought of that scared the living shit out of her.

Anne had never shouldered any responsibility like this in her life, hell, barely any responsibility at all. It had always been easier just to drift around (metaphorically) on the wind, never stopping long enough to get weighed down by anything.

But this.

Anne had no idea how to handle this.

The thoughts kept plaguing her all through training that day. She was feeling dazed as she used two long glowing ropes (Barbara said they helped activate Elemental powers) to fight with Anna. Anna didn’t seem the least bit tired from her efforts, but then again, Anne was probably ridiculously easy to fight, especially today.

She sighed, swinging the ropes rhythmically as she let herself drift away completely into her thoughts.

What exactly was she supposed to do? Free all these people and break the system?

Anne liked to experiment. She liked to believe she would succeed, believe that was what  _ made  _ you succeed, and she liked to do things just for the sake of having fun. She believing she would win. It was better than truly thinking about the alternative.

But freeing people was the one thing she knew she couldn’t do.

For all her creativity and cleverness, she could never free people. She hadn’t even been able to free herself, and she was struggling to break free of everything now. Sometimes it felt like they would all start hating her if they knew the truth. Sometimes she just wanted to bury everything all over again.

Sometimes she felt like she would only mess everything up.

She felt a tear sliding down her face. God, she hadn’t felt  _ this _ emotional in months. 

“Anne?” The sound of Anna’s voice pulled the girl out of her thoughts. She focused her eyes back on her glowing ropes, which seemed to be glowing even more brightly now.

“What is it?”

“Look up.”

As Anne looked up, she felt another overwhelming tide of emotion crash through her. She screamed.

The entire room was full of fire, burning brightly and wildly.

“Anne!” shouted Barbara’s voice from somewhere that sounded very, very far away, “stop the fire!”

“How do I do that?!”

“It’s coming from you! Can’t you feel it?”

And she realized she could.

Tentatively, she held up her hands. She felt the surge of emotion rush through her, just barely under control. Except now, she realized it wasn’t emotion. Not completely, anyway. 

It was power.

And she let it loose.

But instead of doing anything to the fire, an enormous gust of wind came tearing through the room, whipping the flames about and making them go higher skill. 

And Anne lost all semblance of control. The power was suddenly everywhere. There was so much of it, too much for her, for  _ anyone. _

The flames grew hotter. She felt herself burning up.

And then the room went dark.

When Anne woke up, she was back in her bed. The room was bright, with sunlight streaming through the windows and the skylight, which was nice. It made Anne feel less trapped.

She groaned, trying to sit up, but her hands seemed to be out of commission. Looking down, she saw a pair of handcuffs around her wrists. They glowed, like the ropes from intensive.

The room was empty. The others were probably still downstairs. 

She wished she were there, too.

But she’d lost control of her power the second it had showed up. She had no one to blame but herself.

The door opened, and Barbara walked in. Anne eagerly leaned toward the side of the bed.

“Barbara!  _ Please  _ tell me you know what’s going on!”   
Barbara gave her a warm smile. “Anne, I know this is scary, but there’s nothing to worry about.”

“What happened? What’s my power? How do I stop it?”

Barbara sighed. “Anne, you are clearly a powerful elementalist.”

“A what now?”

“An elementalist. Most people with Elemental powers control just one element; fire, earth, water, and air are the main ones, but there are a few others. You, however, are an elementalist. You control all four.”

“Not just fire and air?”

“No. In the case of Elemental powers, having control of more than one means you have control of all four.”

Anne nodded. “Okay. So what happened back there?”

Barbara leaned against the bed. “You lost control of your powers. Don’t worry. Elemental powers come from outside the body, and they are very strong forces. Loss of control is incredibly common in new heroes with this type of power, especially the rare few who, like you, control all four elements. With practice, you should be able to gain complete control.”

“And the handcuffs?”

The blonde woman shifted uncomfortably. “Those...well, those are just to keep your powers...contained. Until you have complete control.”

Much to her dismay, Anne felt the beginning of tears in the very backs of her eyes. “So I’m a threat to everyone around me?”

Barbara twiddled her fingers, looking nervous. “Well...yes. But…”

“Get out.”

“Anne, I…”

“Get out!”

She didn’t see Barbara go, but she knew she was gone. She threw her face into the pillow, and, for the first time in ages, just let herself cry. 

She’d come to care about these girls so quickly, yet here she was, putting them all in danger.

She was supposed to save the world, but she couldn’t even control her own power.

What kind of hero did that make her?

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been there, but she finally felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Cathy perched on the edge of the bed.

“What is it?”

The curly haired girl shifted her reading glasses nervously. “I just...I came to see how you were.”   
“Just you?”

Cathy looked hurt, pulling away.

“Oh, I didn’t mean…”

“Yeah, just me.”

There was awkward silence between them. The air somehow felt charged with energy, though Anne couldn’t tell what sort of energy it was.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you come?”

Cathy sighed, flopping back onto the bed so that she was right next to Anne.

“I honestly don’t know. I thought it wouldn’t be...good for you to be along. Psychologically, it’s not good for anyone to be alone after something happens that hurts them, so I guess it makes sense.”

“Why aren’t you in training?”

“Kat had to come take that dream test she’s been doing that prep for, and Barbara could only take four people, so I decided to come back here.”

Anne stared into Cathy’s eyes, surprised. Cathy was the girl she knew the least so far. All she really knew was that she liked to read and write.

But talking to her now, it was clear that she had a wisdom to her.

“You’ll get your powers working, you know.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because I’ve seen you. You’re strong, but you don’t think so. But you’re stronger than you know.” She grinned. “Plus I asked Barbara for some statistics, and the rate of heroes who never learn to control their powers is incredibly low, and most of them discovered them really late, so…” she toyed awkwardly with her glasses, “nothing to worry about!”

Plus, her eyes looked really pretty when they sparkled like that.

Wait a second…

Cathy checked her watch. “I’d better go. I just...I thought you might want to know that.”

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Once again, Anne didn’t see Cathy leave, but she knew when she was gone.

That didn’t mean there wasn’t still energy filling the air.

It wasn’t until later that night that Anne put all of the pieces together.

There was a game of Truth or Dare going around the room. Kat was asking Jane, and she was grinning and giggling.

“So Jane, have you seen anyone you think is cute yet?”

And all of a sudden, it all became very, very clear. 

Anne had never really crushed on someone before, but she was pretty sure she was right. 

Jane blushed. “Not really.”

Catherine rolled her eyes. “Plus it’s not allowed.”

Anne shot up in bed, her handcuffs banging on the wall. “What?”

Catherine sighed. “Yeah. School rules. Since supervillains often go for people heroes care about and love interests are common targets, we’re not allowed to date for our own safety. Not until we leave school. Barbara explained it ages ago.”

Well so much for that newfound clarity.

Anne sighed as she flopped back down, hair spilling over her pillow

Maybe it was a good idea. Now she could focus on her getting power under control.

Besides, there was no way someone like Cathy could like someone like her. She was an out of control mess. This way, she could spare herself the heartbreak.

But there was just something about her. The way her words made just the right impact, as though each one had been carefully chosen. The way her eyes shone with a deep knowledge and wit.

Music pricked at the corner of Anne’s ears. At first she thought it was Anna’s speakers, but then she realized it was Kat singing on the balcony. She did that sometimes, late at night, when she wanted to play for the sky.

_ Heart stop, racing, et’s face it, making mistakes like this will make worse what was already pretty bad. Mind, stop running, it’s time we just let this thing go. _

_ It was a pretty good bad idea, _

_ Wasn’t it though? _

Anne groaned.

Everything was already a mess.


	6. Catherine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Falling, pain, swearing.

Most girls woke up to the irritating beeping of an alarm clock or the sound of cheesy pop songs on the radio. Some woke up to the sounds of their parents’ or siblings’ voices calling their name. Some even woke up to the sound of birds chirping, or any other loud noise coming from outside the window.   
Catherine, on the other hand, woke up to the feeling of her bunk bed raining on her.

In the days since Anne had gotten her power, she had woken up this way every single morning without fail. Anne didn’t have control of her powers yet (she still had to wear the glowing handcuffs, which Barbara had since turned into bracelets, to keep the elements contained), but Catherine wasn’t completely convinced that the rain on her face every morning was  _ entirely  _ out of Anne’s control. 

Still, it was an alarm, and one she needed. So she flung herself out of bed, moving as quietly as possible, seeing as the other girls minus Anne were all still sound asleep. They’d been up late sharing stories the night before. Catherine almost had to laugh. Wait until they got their classes.  _ Then  _ they, like Catherine, would have a heap of work to do. No time for goodnight stories then. But for now, she swung on a bright yellow hoodie with a sun on it over her orange tank top and jeans. As was often the case in the mountains, the morning weather was chilly, with a low mist hanging over everything in sight. 

Anne, too, was getting up. She and Catherine had no classes together, but Catherine had still enjoyed her company at the breakfast table these past few days. Sure, the elementalist absolutely got on her nerves, but even her voice was better than the absolute silence of eating alone.

She wished she could eat with Jane, though. Jane understood her in a way that no one had in a very long time.

Then again, Catherine hadn’t had a real best friend in a long time, either.

At last, Anne, who was always much slower than the telekinetic to get ready in the mornings, especially with the handcuffs, even though they were now bracelets, made her way to the door. She looked more dressed up than Catherine would have ever thought necessary, in a silver, short-sleeved, glittering turtleneck, with a short black skirt, black fishnet tights, and black boots.

Well, she was certainly making a statement, to say the least.

They slowly travelled down the castle stairs, passing groups of students eating, reading, chatting, even a few who were locked in hand to hand combat. Catherine felt a rush of adrenaline in her blood. She wasn’t sure why, but she hadn’t told the other girls just how much she adored combat training. The rush of energy, the heat of the moment, the feeling of power and safety, safety that you got for yourself. 

She also loved her usual academic classes, though they were a bit dull on occasion, especially since the use of powers was prohibited. She loved her classes on the history of heroes and villains. She loved meeting with her Physical powers group, gaining a deeper understanding of Physical powers as a whole and how to use them. Likewise, she loved her tutoring. She liked to focus on her power and block out everything else. It felt like she’d found her calling.

Come to think of it, she really did love everything.

Maybe her calling was school instead of world saving. She supposed that was quite a big difference. It wasn’t like school was  _ almost  _ the same as world saving but  _ one little thing _ was different. No. School and world saving were about as different as two things could be.

She wondered if her calling could be both. She had, after all, spent much of her childhood being educated. It wasn’t because of her religion, like  _ some  _ stupid people thought. Being religious didn’t automatically make you the most serious person in the world. She hated it when people assumed that. 

She was serious, though. Her parents were academics. They liked to read and discuss politics at the dinner table. She’d always been taught about the importance of education. She’d understood it. She’d never been the type to goof off in school, or even talk while walking down the hallways.

She was a good student and a hard worker. And she was proud of that.

But, she thought as she stared across the table at Anne, being a good student wasn’t  _ nearly  _ as fun when  _ some  _ people got to do things like make it  _ rain  _ on you every morning and still get away with it. 

Still, no matter what her calling was, she’d fallen into a routine very quickly, and one she quite liked.

She turned to her roommate, who was currently piling Froot Loops onto a stack of waffles with syrup and whipped cream. Anne had recently made a game out of seeing how crazy she could make her breakfast combinations every morning. So far, Catherine had seen her put bacon, granola, cinnamon, and peach yogurt on blueberry pancakes (which had been pretty good), and put ketchup on her french toast (that had been...less good).

Catherine, on the other hand, liked to have the same thing for breakfast every morning. Scrambled eggs and toast. A little salty, a little sweet. Some might call her a picky eater, but it was better than whatever thing Anne was doing with the strawberry jam and her cup of coffee.

She wondered what the other girls ate for breakfast. Because she’d gotten her power so quickly, she’d never had the chance to eat with them. Hopefully, they’d all discover their powers, and they’d all be on the same schedule soon. Her roommates had their odd quirks, sure, but it was a million times better than not seeing them at all.

She took a sip of her coffee and smiled at Anne, who was chewing thoughtfully on her waffle with Froot Loops, syrup, and whipped cream.

“What classes have you got today?”

Anne pulled out her little schedule card from her pocket. “Let’s see...today’s Thursday, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Anne glanced at her card. “I have English and Hero Origins, then the usual group meeting and combat and mentoring. You?”

“Science, Villain History, and then all the stuff you mentioned.”

“It sucks that we don’t have any classes together.”

“Yeah. I bet we’ll have some with the others, though.”

Anne glanced at her schedule. “So how’s your student group?”

“It’s good. Lots of people with Physical powers in this school, so it’s one of many. And it’s big.”

“How many people?”

“Ten including me.”

“Are they nice?”

“Most of them seem like it.”

“What are their powers?”

“We have four telekenetics including me, two healers, three people with super speed, and one with super strength.”

“That’s amazing!”

“Yeah. There are a lot of physical powers, so they try to give you some other people with your same power if they can.”

“All of us have different powers. It’s supposed to be more beneficial for elementalists.”

“Really?”

“Mmhmm. Something about different energies strengthening you.”   
“So who’ve you got?”

Anne took a deep breath. “Me, a water manipulator, a fire manipulator, an air manipulator, an earth manipulator, a magnokenetic, an electropath, and this girl who controls acids.”

“That’s so cool!”

Anne smirked. “Yeah, Elemental powers are  _ really  _ wicked.”

“Are you implying that they’re somehow better than Physical powers?”

“That’s exactly what I’m implying.”

Catherine rolled her eyes, checking her watch. “Well, you’re clearly wrong, but it’s time for class, so you can go be wrong somewhere else.”

“See you later.”

“If I’m not dead by then. Catina is going to kill me.”

“Don’t take it personally. She likes to kill everyone.”

“Bye.”

“Good luck.”

Catherine’s mind sank into the monotony of note taking during science class. While she certainly found the study of radioactive elements interesting (especially since there was research showing that they potentially gave people superpowers who didn’t have them naturally), but this curriculum meant the first lesson of a new topic was always note taking. She liked note taking, but they’d been doing it in all their other classes this week, and it was just...so...tedious. She wanted to fall asleep by the time she left the classroom.   
Villain History, as usual, was much more interesting. The teacher, Dahlia, was a dramatic woman who spent much of her time levitating at least three feet off the floor. She never said anything in a monotone, and there was usually a sweeping hand gesture to accompany every sentence. This week, they were working in pairs to act out some of the important moments from the rise of the Dark Villains (aka when they got dangerous instead of just annoying), back in the 1400s. Catherine and her partner Lydia’s skit wasn’t ready yet, so they were going next week. That meant she got to spend the entire class watching other students perform skits (with varying degrees of funniness), and then watch Dahlia criticize their acting skills as opposed to the actual material.

Anne would have loved that day’s student group meeting. Physical powers were very, well...physical, so their group leader, Ripley, who had a lot of energy, often gave them physical activities to get their bodies used to hard work. Today, to practice attacking, they were swinging baseball bats at vases. Suffice to say, the floor was covered in a large amount of little clay pieces by the time class ended.

Lunch was a quick ordeal. Extracurriculars had started, and though Catherine had yet to really look at them (she was waiting for the rest of her roommates to join her), Anne had already become a member of the Photography Club, and was at yet another meeting. She’d said something at breakfast, though Catherine hadn’t quite heard her, about trying to manipulate the lake so that the light sparkled on it in pretty shapes and patterns. Regardless of what the Photography Club was meeting about, Catherine ate quickly before heading up to the seventh floor, where Barbara’s office was located.

Every student in the school had a personal mentor, and since Catherine was, you know, prophesied to save the world, she got to see hers every day.

Barbara was the assistant head of school. She also happened to be a telekinetic. That was why she was Catherine’s mentor.

She was a good mentor, too. Kind but not a pushover, hardworking but not burned out, tough but not mean. She was experienced, and she’d already given Catherine a plethora of useful tricks to use.

Today, she was holding a large mirror. It looked almost normal, but if Catherine looked closely, she could see something murky lurking in the depths of the glass.

“What’s that?”

Barbara smiled. “This is a power mirror. It blocks the influence of all powers, if the powers hit it instead of their target.”

“You’re gonna fight me with  _ that _ ?”

“No, you’re going to try and aim around it. Telekinesis not only takes strength, it takes precision and aim. We’re going to try that today. Are you ready?”

“Always ready.”

“Good.”

Catherine reached deep inside her body, feeling the flow of power and movement that coursed through her veins. Raising her hand, she let the power spread to the very tips of her fingers.

She studied Barbara. She looked for a way around the mirror. 

She pointed. And then she let the power go.

But she’d underestimated exactly how much power she’d been using. And a lot of power was very likely to go sideways. 

The mirror suddenly glowed a shade of bright purple.

A second later, an immense force slammed into Catherine, knocking her off her feet, sending her flying backwards through the air.

All of a sudden, she felt glass breaking around her, and then she was falling out the window and down the side of the tower. 

Oh shit.

She closed her eyes, bracing for impact. She felt her life flash before her.

She was seventeen. It was short.

She felt a thump, and pain coursed through her body.    
Everything hurt. She couldn’t even move.

A shriek startled her enough to open her eyes. She saw the four other girls (the ones without their powers), sitting on the edge of the lawn. They’d been eating lunch, but now they were staring at her. Jane was already running over, bless her heart. 

The blonde girl took Catherine’s wrist in her own, and Catherine realized she was checking for a pulse.

“She’s alive!”

The others breathed a sigh of relief.

Jane looked terrified. “Call Heidi!”

Kat sprinted toward the building. Jane turned her face towards Catherine.

“Hey. Don’t go anywhere. We’ve just met, but I can already tell we’re going to be such good friends. You get me. I’d like to think I get you too. There’s so much we haven’t done. Don’t miss out on all that.”

Suddenly, the air around them filled with a silvery glow. 

When the light cleared, Catherine was shocked to find her pain gone. She sat bolt upright, causing Jane to squeal and pull her into a hug, before pulling back rapidly, staring at her hands.

“What was  _ that _ ?”

“Well,” said a voice from behind Catherine, and she turned to see Catina standing there. She must have come over from combat training, “congratulations. I’d say you’ve found yourself a healer.”


	7. Kat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Swearing.  
> Sorry this took so long to update! Actually, sorry I've been so inactive this week! I've had some writer's block, but I'm getting over this week, and this week I'm going to try really hard to be more consistent! Thank you to everyone who is still here despite my inconsistency. ❤️

Later that night, after Jane had gotten her powers and disappeared with Heidi (the school’s resident healer), and Barbara, Kat found herself on their balcony. She should have been thinking about her friend, but she’d instead started to play the guitar to soothe her worries. It was a common thing for her to do, and with her weird tech sound thing (she still didn’t understand how it worked), she could play and sing as loud as she wanted.

But this had been one of those times when she’d felt the urge to play outside, to hear the sound of her music, pure and simple, against the setting sun. It was hard to explain in words, but there was just something special about playing to the sky.

Or, it had been special until her cousin had come tumbling out the window and onto the balcony, looking disheveled but sporting an enormous grin.

Kat smirked at Anne, confused and bemused. “What?”

Anne gave her an innocent smile. “ _ I  _ have done nothing. I’m an absolute angel.”

A very angry looking Catherine stuck her head out the door. “I found  _ worms  _ in my shoes. Literal  _ worms.  _ Where the fuck did you get worms, Boleyn?”

Anne batted her eyelashes. “Aren’t you supposed to be resting since you fell out a window?”

Catherine rolled her eyes and disappeared back into the room, just as Cathy came out onto the balcony. Noticing her cousin’s cheeks turning a deep shade of pink, she turned away and pretended to be very focused on her E Minor guitar chord. What her cousin didn’t know was that the E Minor chord required two fingers, strumming all the strings (which was easiest and required the least coordination), and no focus whatsoever. 

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Kat tried not to laugh at the fact that Anne’s voice had jumped up about two octaves.

“What’s going on?”

Anne sighed. “Not much. Just messing with Catherine.”

“We’ve been here almost two weeks. You think you really know her well enough to mess with her like that?”

Anne sighed. “Not sure, I guess, but...it just feels like camp. Like we’ve all known each other for ages.”

“I understand that.”

“I don’t hate her, though.”

“No?”

“‘Course not. I quite like her. She’s just easy to mess with.” There was a pause. “Don’t tell her that. I’d never hear the end of it.”

Cathy laughed. 

There was another pause. Kat leaned in and pretended to focus on her A chord, the chord that required three fingers all in a row and five strings being played. In short, another chord requiring zero focus. But Anne and Cathy didn’t need to know that.

“Hey, are you alright?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“I know you and Jane were getting close.”

“Not as close as her and Catherine. Those two are inseparable.”

“Still.”   
“I’m all right. She got her powers. I don’t think that’s something to worry about. Catherine’s a mess, though.”

“Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to put worms in her shoes.”

“Maybe not now.”

“Are you implying that it would ordinarily be a good idea?”

“All I’m saying is that I can take a joke.”

Kat gave her cousin a sly smile as Cathy disappeared back into their room. “So you like her, huh?”

Anne’s face turned even redder. “What?! No! She’s just...really nice. And clever. And pretty.”

Kat smirked, perching her guitar on her lap. “It’s okay to like her, you know.”

Anne groaned. “Except it isn't. Stupid no dating rule.”

“So you admit you like her?”

Anne rolled her eyes. “Fine, you caught me.”

“Yeah, that rule’s a bit of a nightmare.”

“I mean, it technically makes sense.”

“It does. But don’t we all have targets on our backs anyway?”

Anne raised her eyebrows. “You make a good point.”

Before either of them could say any more, they were interrupted by Anna racing onto the balcony, radiating confidence, as usual. Instantly, Kat felt her arms tingling. What  _ was  _ it about this girl that made her so uneasy? How could she  _ be  _ that confident?

She felt her face grow hot as she realized Anna was staring back at her. __

“What are you looking at?” There was a defensive edge to her voice, as though she somehow knew Kat didn’t like her. 

“Nothing.” Kat turned back to the guitar before Anna could see the guilty look on her face. 

Anne laughed awkwardly, as though she could sense the tension in the air.

“So, Boleyn, I heard you joined cheerleading.”

“Yeah, I did it at home. It was pretty much the only thing I liked about school.”

“Why…”

“Don’t you dare say it’s not a sport, Cleves.”

Anna laughed. “I was going to ask why you like it.”

“With an implied undertone?”

“I don’t do implied undertones. What you see is what you get.”

Kat rolled her eyes. She was nearly 100% sure that  _ that  _ wasn’t true.

“Fair enough. I try to be like that, too. Except when I don’t.”

More laughter.

“So why  _ do  _ you like cheerleading?”

Anne sighed. “It’s exhilarating. Like you’re in your own world of flipping and yelling and positive energy, and it’s just you and your teammates and...nothing else. Like the world falls away.”

“That’s how I feel on the soccer field.”

Kat turned to face them. “That’s how I feel onstage.”

There was a moment of silence. The three girls watched the sun set over the lake and the mountains. 

Kat turned to Anna. “So you play soccer?”

“Yeah.” She smirked in a proud sort of way. “I was actually nationally ranked before I came here.”

Kat had to fight to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Of  _ course  _ she was an athlete. Kat had always hated the kids at her school who’d played sports. Not all of them, of course, but so many of them had thought they were all that just because they could kick and throw a ball around. They walked around with those proud smirks on their faces, wrestling and showing off at every hour of the day, showing off their muscles (and their egos) for everyone to see.

From the looks of it, Anna didn’t seem any different. No wonder Kat disliked her.

Anna turned to Anne. “Hear that, Boleyn? Soon you’re going to be cheering for  _ me _ .”

“In your dreams!”

The friends’ teasing was interrupted by Cathy poking her head out the door, curls bouncing.    
“Jane’s back.”

The three girls rushed back into the room to find a very frazzled but seemingly unharmed Jane sitting on Catherine’s bed. The telekinetic had her arm around her, and seemed to pretty much be holding her up. 

Anne raced over and perched on the foot of the bed. Cathy was already climbing up to her bunk, and Anna followed her, Cathy sitting towards the end and lying down and facing the still standing Kat, while Anna sat towards the head of the bed, leaning her head and upper body over the side to look directly down at Catherine and Jane. Kat, not seeing any more space on the bunk bed, decided to plop down onto the rug at Catherine’s feet, pulling her knees in close to her chest as she did so.

“So what happened?” For once, Kat appreciated Anna’s confidence, because she’d said what they were all thinking.

Jane sighed. “Not much, actually. They just asked a million questions. About me, my disposition, my life. Apparently healers are pretty common, but good healers are rare.” She yawned. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

Catherine nodded. “When I got my powers, I had to hold a weight steady in the air for an hour. I was exhausted afterwards. I think we’ve all got something like that.”

Anne held up her wrists, which were still adorned with the glowing bracelets. “And I’m still stuck with these.”

“What do those even do, exactly?”

Anne groaned. “They help me keep my powers under control. They’re not so bad, just embarrassing. Plus they weaken my powers, so when I wear them, I’m pretty much useless in a fight.”

“And without them?”

“And without them, I have no control, and I’m pretty much useless in a fight.”

“Have you been working on control?”

“Yeah. So far, all I’ve done is flood the first floor and set my tutor’s desk on fire.”

“I hope she doesn’t have a very expensive desk.”

“Nah, Bailey’s cool. She’s not an elementalist, but she’s a really powerful air manipulator, and her siblings each have one of the other three main elemental powers, so she’s got experience.”

Jane sighed. “I wish I got an alum for my tutor. Instead, I have Heidi.”

Cathy cocked her head. “Heidi’s sweet.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just not sure how…” Jane blushed “ _ current  _ her methods are.”

Anne smirked. “Wow, Jane. You must really be exhausted if you’re being honest instead of nice.”

“Hey!” But the blonde girl was smiling and laughing. She yawned. “I _am_ tired, though. But I won’t be able to sleep. My brain’s too full of thoughts. Ever get that feeling.”

“All the time,” said Cathy. The rest of the girls nodded. They knew the feeling, or at least Kat knew she did.

Catherine smiled as Jane’s head came to rest on her shoulder. “I have an idea. How about, to clear your mind so you can sleep, we play a little game of Truth or Dare?”

Jane grinned sleepily. “That sounds nice.”

Anne smirked. “You think you have to ask?”

Anna smiled and gave the elementalist a high five. 

Catherine looked up. “Kat? Cathy?”

“Sure.”

“Why not?”

Catherine grinned. “All right then. Jane, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

Catherine rubbed her hands together, thinking. “Have you ever committed a crime?”

Jane’s face turned beet red. “...yes.”

The girls burst out laughing.

“You have to tell us about it!” shrieked Anne through her laughter.

Jane cracked a smile. “It’s  _ really  _ embarrassing. When I was five, I wanted to get my best friend a birthday present, but my parents didn’t have a ton of money back then, so they couldn’t afford one. So I went and got some paint and brushes from our garage and painted ‘happy birthday’ on the side of her house.”   
Catherine laughed. “Jane, that’s the cutest story I’ve ever heard.”

“Thanks!”

“But how is that a crime?”

“It’s technically vandalism, Anne!”

“That  _ should not  _ count as a crime! You were  _ five _ !”

Jane smiled. “Luckily, I didn’t get arrested.”

“Luckily for all of us.”

Jane giggled, eyes drooping shut. “Okay okay. Kat. Truth or dare?”

“Um...dare?”

“I dare you to play us a song.”

Kat blushed. “Aaw, Jane, I don’t think they want to hear that.”

“Yes we do!” Cheers echoed through the room, making Kat blush even more. Only Anna seemed to have no enthusiasm for the idea, which didn’t surprise Kat at all.   
Nonetheless, she took out her guitar and began to play. It was a song she’d known since she was thirteen, but the words still felt true.

_ But I don’t even care, _

_ I don’t care. _

_ I don’t even care, _

_ I don’t care. _

_ I’m not always trapped in my head, _

_ Playing back the wrong things that I did and said, _

_ No! I don’t even care, _

_ I don’t care. _

_ I just walk on air, _

_ I don’t care. _

_ I’m the girl who lets it all go, _

_ Everything you see’s going perfectly, _

_ I don’t even… _

_ You don’t even know! _

She finished to a smattering of applause, shown with varying degrees of energy and enthusiasm. She felt tired after playing, as she often did when she played emotional songs, but Jane’s eyes were still open, so the game continued.

“Catherine. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

Kat propped her chin up on her guitar, thinking. “What’s something we don’t know about you?”

Catherine paused. “Remember when I said I was from Spain?”

“Yeah?”

“My parents and my family….we’re technically descendants of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.”

“That’s so cool!”

“And a lame answer for Truth or Dare.”

“Shut up, Boleyn. Truth or dare?”

Anne grinned and wiggled her eyebrows. “Dare.”

Catherine smirked. “I dare you to admit that putting worms in my shoes was a bad idea. And I dare you to apologize.”

“Not fair!”

“That’s the game.”

Anne groaned. “Fiiiiine.” She glanced at Catherine, eyes suddenly brimming with sincerity. “Catherine, I admit that putting worms in your shoes was a bad idea. I’m really, really sorry.” She broke away, her smile returning, but just a bit of the sincerity remaining in her eyes. “Well, got that over with! Cathy, truth or dare?”

Catherine rolled her eyes at Anne just as Cathy said “Truth.”

Anne’s face suddenly turned a deep shade of pink, and the sincerity was back in her eyes.

“Would you ever break the no dating rule?”

The question hung in the air. Kat saw Catherine and Jane exchange a glance.    
Cathy’s face flushed. “For the right person...yeah, I suppose so.”

The room was silent. Jane was almost completely asleep.

Cathy awkwardly stared down at her fingernails. “Anyway, Anna. Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“Hmm, okay. I dare you to try hanging upside down from my bed railing.”

“What if she falls?”

“Can you catch her?”

“Probably.”   
“All right. Yeah.” Cathy turned to Anna. “This is what you get for coming onto my bed without asking.”

Anna laughed. “Fair enough.” And with that, she turned, hooking her ankles around Cathy’s railing and hung over the side of the bed. The room hung in suspenseful silence for just a minute before Anna grinned and swung herself back up.

“Beat  _ that,  _ bitches.”

Anne grinned. “I bet I can. Do me. We’ve all gone, I can go again.”   
Anna smirked. “All right, Anne. Truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to take off those bracelets and see what happens.”

The whole room seemed to gasp. Kat leaped to her feet.

“You can’t do that! You have no idea what’ll happen! She could lose control!”

Anna smirked at her. “What, have you got no faith in your own cousin?”

“Of course I trust Anne! But those bracelets are there for a reason! Do you  _ want  _ to get everyone killed?!”

“Guys!” Catherine’s yell shocked Kat so much that she forgot to be mad at Anna. She gestured to Jane, who was laying in her lap and breathing peacefully, eyes shut. “Jane’s sleeping.”

Without a word, the other girls began to prepare silently for bed, trying their best not to wake the newly made healer. Kat threw on her pajamas; pink and soft and printed with little daisies. She took her hair out of its ponytail, and it fell down her back in soft waves. She piled it into a loose bun on top of her head and climbed up to the loft, careful not to wake Jane, who had already been placed into her bed by Catherine.”

As Kat crawled into bed, a peace fell over the room, the lights turning off one by one. 

Kat could forget the drama of Truth or Dare for tonight.

For now, it was time to sleep.


End file.
